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WHOI Sponsors Ocean Observatories Event in New Bedford

The New Bedford Whaling Museum is the backdrop for a free community event “Pioneering New Ocean Science Frontiers” on Saturday, September 17, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., co-sponsored by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. The Whaling Museum is located at 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, Mass.

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WHOI-Led Study Sharpens Picture of How Much Oil and Gas Flowed in Deepwater Horizon Spill

In a detailed assessment of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, researchers led by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have determined that the blown-out Macondo well spewed oil at a rate of about 57,000 barrels a day, totaling nearly 5 million barrels of oil released from the well between April 20 and July 15, 2010, when the leak was capped. In addition, the well released some 100 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas.

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WHOI Hosts Tours of the Research Vessel Knorr

On Sunday, August 7, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will host a free community event featuring a rare opportunity to tour the oceanographic research vessel Knorr. The ship is best known as the one used in the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic and of the first hydrothermal vents. Visitors to the event will also be able to attend talks by one of Knorr’s former captains and scientists who have used it to study the world’s ocean..

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Advanced Imaging Lab Assists in Location of Thunder Bay Shipwrecks

When a group of five high school students embarked on Project Shiphunt, an expedition in search of lost shipwrecks, in May in Lake Huron, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Lab (AIVL) was there, surveying and capturing 3D footage of the finds. The work was conducted as part of Project Shiphunt, an initiative developed by Sony and Intel Corp and led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

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Identical Virus, Host Populations Can Prevail for Centuries, WHOI Researcher Reports

A Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientist, analyzing ancient plankton DNA signatures in sediments of the Black Sea, has found for the first time that the same genetic populations of a virus and its algal host can persist and coexist for centuries. The findings have implications for the ecological significance of viruses in shaping algae ecosystems in the ocean, and perhaps fresh water as well.

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WHOI Scientists Analyze, Explain the Chemical Makeup of Gulf Plume

Taking another major step in sleuthing the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has determined what chemicals were contained in a deep, hydrocarbon-containing plume at least 22 miles long that WHOI scientists mapped and sampled last summer in the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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WHOI Study Sheds Light on Tunicate Evolution

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers have filled an important gap in the study of tunicate evolution by genetically sequencing 40 new specimens of thaliaceans, a gelatinous type of tunicate. Their study was featured on the cover of the June issue of the Journal of Plankton Research.

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Japan Earthquake Appears to Increase Quake Risk Elsewhere in the Country

Japan’s recent magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which triggered a devastating tsunami, relieved stress along part of the quake fault but also has contributed to the build up of stress in other areas, putting some of the country at risk for up to years of sizeable aftershocks and perhaps new main shocks, scientists say.

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WHOI to Host Public Forum on Seafood Security

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will host a public forum on May 25 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Redfield Auditorium on the theme “The Seafood Dilemma: Does it Matter Where We Get Our Seafood? The Balance of US Production, Imports, Wild Capture, and Aquaculture in US Seafood Supply.”

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Emerging Explorers Award to WHOI’s Kakani Katija

Kakani Katija

Kakani Katija, a postdoctoral scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has been selected as one of 14 National Geographic Emerging Explorers for 2011 for her investigation into the role swimming animals might play in mixing and moving the oceans and other large bodies of water.

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Eddies Found to be Deep, Powerful Modes of Ocean Transport

Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues have discovered that massive, swirling ocean eddies—known to be up to 500 kilometers across at the surface—can reach all the way to the ocean bottom at mid-ocean ridges, some 2,500 meters deep, transporting tiny sea creatures, chemicals, and heat from hydrothermal vents over large distances.

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Prey-tell: Why Right Whales Linger in the Gulf of Maine

WHOI’s Mark Baumgartner finds that the location, the length of stay, and perhaps the very abundance of the whales may be dependent on an interesting vertical migration pattern by the copepods on which the whales feed. It seems to be a case, he said, of “how the behavior of the prey influences the behavior of the whales.”

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